As Greg prepared for the roof to be delivered, he realized he had to tackle our piazza. These smaller Freedman's cottages mimic the larger two story single homes of Charleston. In maintaining the historical feel of the home, we want to restore the piazza back to it's original look. The end door has not been present for many years and the wood needed to be replaced. He had planned to tear off shingles, but the stability of our piazza (a small open area on the side of the house) made the idea of standing on it, shaky at best. The picture to the left shows the house as he begins the process of preparing more of the roof for metal. This house has been a source of surprises. Greg jacked up the piazza roof prior to pull off the rails, and installing new floor and header to the piazza. He tore off all of the rails and opened the roof revealing a well maintained squirrel's nest filled with pecan shells. I asked a local where the pecan tree was that kept this squirrel fed and they immediately pointed to the house across from us on Carondelet, in their back yard. We hope to make reentry into our attic space much harder in the future. Greg took this weekend to get the "guts" of the roof ready for insulation and ice and water shield, a rubber like membrane that seals the insulation. This expensive preparation will keep this house dry for many years to come. The heat of Charleston summer warranted some protection from the heat coming into the attic space.
At the end of this weekend, we needed to have the roof ready for the arriving metal. It has been a very long process to get it to this point. The new floor system on the piazza is present from this angle. The boys were due to arrive Thursday evening before Valentine's Day to begin covering the roof with metal. We were given and arrival date of three weeks, but the metal did not actually arrive until Friday morning after 8am. It was cutting it close, but we are thankful for our energetic sons eager to help and learn from their dad.
Ethan is laying flat to screw down a sheet of metal in the photo below.
By mid-day on Saturday, most of this side of the roof had been covered. They all work until it is too dark to continue. Greg miss cut a few angles on the last two sheets and they called it a night.
Below are the two finished products. The guys were up on a "hot tin roof" or at least while the sun was shining. Charleston was cold with lows in the 20's this weekend.
